This report presents the rationale and design of a vocabulary program created as the instrument for research exploring the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. The first section of the report reviews the current state of the art of vocabulary instruction and discusses the techniques used in two commercial basal…

A study was conducted to determine the influence of a holistic versus a phonic approach in beginning reading on children's comprehension scores at the end of grade two. Two groups, each of approximately 350 students, were studied. Group one began reading instruction in first grade using the "Early-to-Read i.t.a. Program" (initial teaching…

Designed particularly with secondary school teachers in mind but applicable to elementary school teachers as well, this publication summarizes research and suggests activities for improving student reading skills in the content area of science. Sections of the publication provide the following information: (1) how to determine student reading…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationships between the cognitive variables of cognitive style, understanding of linguistic concepts, and knowledge of word boundaries, as well as their relationships to three measures of reading in beginning and more advanced readers. The children's Embedded Figures Test, a linguistic concept test, a…

Overviews of schema theory, which focuses on the cognitive operations engaged in by the reader, and discourse analysis, which focuses on structural characteristics of the text itself, are presented in this paper. The first section explains the notion of cognitive schemata (patterns of expectations that are applied to incoming information) and…

Nine prevalent ideas about reading in the content areas are analyzed in this paper. The ideas are as follows: (1) students can not read textbooks because elementary teachers did not teach them to read; (2) students can not read textbooks because of poor phonics and word recognition skills; (3) "real learning" results from reading, rather than from…

Differences among test item writers and among different rules for writing multiple choice items were investigated. Items testing comprehension of a prose passage were varied according to five factors: (1) information density of the passage; (2) item writer; (3) deletion of nouns, as opposed to adjectives, from the sentence in order to construct…

Noting that the terms "language of mathematics,""language of science," and "language of business" represent very real language differences which frustrate even good readers, this curriculum report suggests several procedures teachers might use to assist students in reading in varied content areas. The procedures include teaching students to…

This personal progress report, telling where the author is and where he thinks the field of reading is, is a response to both the "know-more movement" (based on an explosive seeking of greater knowledge of the reading process) and the "know-nothing movement" (a systems-oriented movement based on tightly structured arbitrarily…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 24 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: the influence of additional supportive context upon the reader's ability to identify the main idea of a paragraph; effects of metaphors and paraphrases as…

A supplementary reader and skits for a basic course in Persian are presented that are designed for use in the Defense Language Institute's intensive programs for native English language speakers. The collection of skits is written about everyday activities of the Persian people. The places and situations, as well as the language, have been chosen…

A glossary and notes that accompany an advanced reading text for a basic course in Persian are presented. The course is an intensive program for native English speakers offered by the Defense Language Institute. Idiomatic phrases and sentence structures are explained and special grammar and cultural notes are included. A number of lexical items…

The last of 20 volumes of lessons designed for use in a full-time, intensive training program in Arabic is presented. The 128 lessons in this volume contain various types of comprehension drills. Lessons 14-128 are completely in Arabic. (AMH)

This paper offers a detailed discussion of materials developed for the Chicago Mastery Learning Reading with Learning Strategies (CMLR/LS) program, an upper elementary program in which appropriate learning strategy instructions are embedded within the text for each assigned task. Its purpose is to provide researchers and educators with a…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 25 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) reading comprehension and visual creativity; (2) family interaction and reading achievement in high school males; (3) conceptual tempo, Piagetian level of…